David Graeber considers the possibility:
Is it meaningful to say an electron “chooses” to jump the way it does? Obviously, there’s no way to prove it. The only evidence we could have (that we can’t predict what it’s going to do), we do have. But it’s hardly decisive. Still, if one wants a consistently materialist explanation of the world—that is, if one does not wish to treat the mind as some supernatural entity imposed on the material world, but rather as simply a more complex organization of processes that are already going on, at every level of material reality—then it makes sense that something at least a little like intentionality, something at least a little like experience, something at least a little like freedom, would have to exist on every level of physical reality as well.
Why do most of us, then, immediately recoil at such conclusions? Why do they seem crazy and unscientific? Or more to the point, why are we perfectly willing to ascribe agency to a strand of DNA (however “metaphorically”), but consider it absurd to do the same with an electron, a snowflake, or a coherent electromagnetic field?
The answer, it seems, is because it’s pretty much impossible to ascribe self-interest to a snowflake. If we have convinced ourselves that rational explanation of action can consist only of treating action as if there were some sort of self-serving calculation behind it, then by that definition, on all these levels, rational explanations can’t be found. Unlike a DNA molecule, which we can at least pretend is pursuing some gangster-like project of ruthless self-aggrandizement, an electron simply does not have a material interest to pursue, not even survival. It is in no sense competing with other electrons. If an electron is acting freely—if it, as Richard Feynman is supposed to have said, “does anything it likes”—it can only be acting freely as an end in itself. Which would mean that at the very foundations of physical reality, we encounter freedom for its own sake—which also means we encounter the most rudimentary form of play.
Update from a reader:
I’m a grad student in evolutionary biology and currently TA an introductory evolution course. I had a strong reaction to your post – one surely expected by Mr. Graeber, but perhaps worth airing.
First, the scare-quotes around “metaphorically” are misplaced. This usage is the literal definition of metaphor. Evolutionary biologists talk about the agency of DNA as useful conceptual shorthand, which accurately describes the outcomes of genetic evolution while grossly misrepresenting the mechanism. “The allele wants to help the copies of itself carried in other individuals,” is easier to say and is more intuitive to communicate than “the frequency in the population of alleles encoding for behaviors that harm the individual but help close relatives will increase if the cost to the individual’s reproductive output is less than the benefit to reproduction received by the relative multiplied by the probability a copy of the allele is also carried by the relative.” The statistical sorting leaves behind genes suited for propagation, so the ‘selfish’ analogy works better for genes than for snowflakes.
Second, the evolutionary explanation for consciousness and free will isn’t really addressed. Like so much of biodiversity, it can be seen as an adaptive emergent trait. Behavioral plasticity is a huge advantage. Deterministic links between particular stimuli and behaviors are widespread across the tree of life, but cannot accommodate novel stimuli and likely do not scale to the number of relevant stimuli encountered by complex animals. Breaking the deterministic links in favor of flexible decision making is exactly the kind of solution consistently ‘discovered’ by natural evolution. The emergence hypothesis seems to me more plausible than particular agency, for at least two reasons.
One is that, while the behavior of electrons cannot only be predicted probabilistically, there are many levels of biological organization between electrons and humanity that behave in an exceptionally predictable manner. In the lab, I use enzymes to manipulate DNA molecules; no such science would be possible if these proteins were not reliable replicating, cutting, and ligating machines.
Second, I suspect most people would agree that consciousness is present in non-human animals, and would further agree that, whatever it is, there is more of it in an ape or octopus than a fly, jellyfish, or sunflower. Agency as we observe it correlates strongly with neural complexity, which fits well with the notion that a sense of self emerges from the billions of neural connections housed in large-brained animals.
I don’t mean to go full “dick-head athiest” on you. The piece certainly is interesting, thought provoking, and the sort of thing that brings me back to your blog (and reupping my subscription any day now). It reminds me of my go-to response if I’m asked about my belief in God, to avoid the unfortunate conversation that can so easily follow: No I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in electrons.
The Dish 